the Thundering Herd (1984)

by Grey, Zane

  Dave got red in the face.

  "She didn't send none," he declared.

  "Are you sure?" added Hudnall, suspiciously. "I ain't placin' too much confidence in you, Dave."

  "So it 'pears. But I'm not lyin'."

  "All right. An' after this don't make any fool remarks about marryin' Sally, just to tease Ory. It ain't good taste."

  "Boss, I wasn't teasin' him or talkin' like Ory's hair sticks through his hat," returned Dave, deliberately.

  "What?" shouted Hudnall.

  "Me an' Sally was married."

  "You was married!" roared Hudnall, in amaze and rage.

  "Yes, sir. There was a travelin' parson at Sprague, an' Sally an' me thought it a good chance to marry. So we did."

  "Without askin' leave of me--of her dad?"

  "You wasn't around. Sally was willin'--an' we thought we could tell you afterward."

  "Did you ask her mother? She was around."

  "Nope. I wanted to, but Sally said her mother didn't think I was much of a match."

  "So you just run off with my kid an' married her?" roared Hudnall, beside himself with rage.

  "Kid! Sally's a grown woman. See here, Hudnall, I didn't reckon you'd be tickled, but I shore thought you'd have some sense. Sally an' me would have married, when this huntin's over. I wanted some one to take care of my money, an' keep it, case I get killed out here. So what's wrong about it?"

  "You big Swede!" thundered Hudnall. "You didn't ask ME. That's what. An' I'm a mind to pound the stuffin's out of you."

  Stronghurl was not profoundly moved by this threat.

  "If you feel that way, come on," he replied, coolly. He was a thick, imperturbable sort of fellow, and possibly, Tom thought, he might be a Swede.

  Pilchuck was shaking with silent mirth; Ory Tacks was reveling in revenge; Burn Hudnall sat divided between consternation and glee; old man Dunn looked on, very much amazed; and as for Tom, he felt that it looked mightily like a fight, yet he could not convince himself it would go that far.

  "Come on, huh?" echoed Hudnall, boomingly, as he rose to his lofty height. He was twice the size of Stronghurl. He could have broken the smaller, though sturdy, bridegroom in short order. Slowly Stronghurl rose, at last seriously concerned, but resigned and forceful.

  "Reckon you can lick me, Hudnall," he said, "an' if it's goin' to make you feel better let's get it over."

  For answer Hudnall seemed to change, to expand, and throwing back his shaggy head he let out a stentorian roar of laughter. That eased the situation. Pilchuck also broke out, and the others, except Dave, joined him to the extent of their mirth. Hudnall was the last to recover, following which he shoved a brawny hand at Stronghurl.

  "Dave, I was mad, natural-like, but you takin' me serious about fightin' over Sally was funny. Why, bless your heart, I'm glad for Sally an' you, even if you didn't ask me, an' I wish you prosperity an' long life!"

  Stronghurl's armor of density was not proof against this big- hearted and totally unexpected acceptance and approval, and he showed in his sudden embarrassment and halting response that he was deeply moved. Nor did he take the congratulations of the rest of the outfit as calmly as might have been supposed he would, from his announcement of the marriage. Ory Tacks showed to advantage in his sincere and manly overture of friendliness.

  What with this incident, and the news of Sprague to be told to Hudnall and Pilchuck, and their recital of the hunting conditions to Tom and Dave, the outfit did not soon get the day's hides pegged down, or to their much-needed beds.

  Next morning Hudnall made the suggestion that each and all of the outfit would ride out of their way to look over new camps and to inquire of hunters as to the whereabouts of Randall Jett.

  "Tom, we can't stop work altogether, but we can all spare some time," he said. "An' I'll drive the wagon out an' back, so you'll have time to ride along the river. It's my idea we'll find Milly pronto."

  "Then what?" queried Tom, thrilling deeply with this good man's assurance.

  "Wal, you can leave that to me," interposed Pilchuck, dryly. Tom was quick to sense something in the scout's mind which had not been spoken.

  But that day and the next and the following passed fleetly by without any trace of Jett's outfit. Ten miles up and down the river, on the west bank, had been covered by some one of Hudnall's outfit. No three-wagon camp had been located.

  "Shore Jett must be across the river," averred Pilchuck. "There's outfits strung along, an' enough buffalo for HIM."

  "What'll I do?" queried Tom, appealingly.

  "Wal, son, you can't work an' do the job right," replied the scout.

  "I'd take a couple of days off. Ride down the river twenty miles or so, then cross an' come back on the other side. If that don't fetch results ride up the river, cross an' come back. Ask about Indians, too, an' keep your eyes peeled."

  Tom's saddle horse, Dusty, had been ridden by Burn Hudnall and Pilchuck also during Tom's absence, and had developed into a fleet, tireless steed only second to Pilchuck's best buffalo chaser. Next morning Tom set off, mounted on Dusty. Well armed, with a small store of food, a canteen of water, and a field-glass, he turned resolute face to the task before him.

  In less than two hours he had passed the ten-mile limit of his search so far, and had entered unfamiliar country where camps were many, and buffalo apparently as thick as bees round a hive. But very few of the camps had an occupant; at that hour all the men of each outfit were engaged up on the prairie, as the incessant boom of guns proved. How Tom's eyes strained and ached to catch a glimpse of the red scarf Milly said she would put up wherever she was! What bitter disappointment when he espied a blanket or anything holding a touch of red!

  From each camp Tom would ride up the prairie slope to a level and out toward the black-fringed, dust-mantled moving medium that was buffalo. Thus he came upon hunters, skinners, teamsters, all of whom gave him less cordial greeting than he had received from hide- hunters before he went north. It took some moments for Tom to make his sincerity felt. These men were rushed for time, and a feeling of aloofness from strangers had manifestly passed south from camp to camp. Not one of them could or would give him any clue to Jett's outfit.

  "Air you lookin' fer hide thieves?" queried one old grizzled hunter.

  "No. I'm looking for a girl who has been brought down here by a man named Jett."

  "Sorry. Never heard of him. But if you was lookin' fer hide thieves I'd be damn interested," replied the hunter.

  "Why?" asked Tom, curiously.

  "Because I had eleven hundred hides stole from my camp," he replied, "an' ain't never heerd of them since, let alone seein' hide or hair."

  "Too bad. Is there much of this dirty work going on?"

  "How 'n 'll can we tell thet?" retorted the man. "Thar's forty square miles of buffler, millin' an' movin', too. Nobody can keep track of any one. It's all mad rush. But some dirty sneaks air gittin' rich on other men's work."

  Very few men Tom encountered, however, had any words to spare; and before that day was over he decided not to interrogate any more.

  It went against his grain to be regarded with hard, cold, suspicious eyes. There was no recourse for him but to search till he met Jett or found his camp. That struck him as far from a hopeless task, yet his longing and dread were poignant. He went on until he had passed the zone of camps and had drawn out of hearing of the boom-boom-boom of the big fifties. Not by many miles, though, had he come to the end of the buffalo herd.

  It was the middle of the afternoon, too late for Tom to reach camp that day. He crossed the stream, now a clear shallow sandy- bottomed little watercourse, running swiftly. He was probably not many leagues from its source up in the bluffs of the Staked Plain, stark bald-faced heave of country, frowning down on the prairie.

  Tom took the precaution to sweep the open stretches in front with his field-glass. All that he saw there were buffalo, near and far, everywhere, dots and strings and bands, just straggling remnants of the immense herd bac
k over the stream.

  A good trail, with horse tracks in it, followed the course of the water east, and led along the edge of the timber and sometimes through open groves. But Tom did not come to a road or see a camp or man or horse. The prairie was a beautiful grassy level, growing brown from the hot sun. Bands of antelope grazed within range of his gun, as tame as cattle; deer trotted ahead of him through the timber; wild turkeys by the hundreds looked up at his approach and made no effort to run. He saw bear and panther tracks in the dust of the trail.

  Sunset overtook Tom and still he rode on. Before dark, however, he espied a thick clump of timber in which he decided to spend the night. Finding a suitable place well down from the trail, he unsaddled Dusty and led him to the stream to drink, then picketed him with a long lasso on a grass plot.

  Twilight stole down into the grove while Tom ate some of the meat and bread he had taken the precaution to bring. No fire was necessary, as the air was close and sultry; besides, it might have attracted attention. He spread his saddle blankets for a bed, placed his saddle for a pillow, and with weapons at his side he lay down to sleep.

  This was the first night he had been alone on the Texas prairies.

  It was novel, strange, somehow exhilarating, and yet disturbing.

  His anxiety to find Milly had led him far from the hunters' camps, into wild country, where he must run considerable risk. His state of mind, therefore, rendered him doubly susceptible to all around him.

  Dusk mantled the river brakes. The night insects had begun their incessant song, low, monotonous, plaintive. And frogs joined in with their sweet, mellow, melodious trill. In spite of these sounds silence seemed to reign. Solitude was omnipresent there.

  Tom found it hard to realize that the extermination of America's most numerous and magnificent game beast was in frenzied operation along this river; that bands of Indians were on the warpath, and hide-robbers foraging secretly. Here the night and place were lonely, sad, provocative of such thoughts as had never before disturbed Tom.

  By and by his attention was attracted at intervals by soft padded steps somewhere near, and the cracking of twigs down in the brakes, and the squealing of raccoons. Once a wild cry startled him, so nearly like a woman's scream was it, and he recognized it as the rare cry of a panther. He had heard hunters at the camps tell of it. Gradually his nervousness wore away. These creatures of the wilderness would not harm him; he had only to fear those beings made in his own image.

  The night, the stars, the insects, the stealthy denizens of the brush, the soft, drowsy, sultry summer darkness with its dim flare of sheet lightning along the horizon, the loneliness and freedom of the open country--these worked on Tom's mind and from them he gathered a subtle confidence that there was something stronger than evil in men. Milly would not be lost to him.

  At last Tom slept. He was awakened by the scratching and clucking of wild turkeys, so close that he could have tossed his hat among them. The sun was red in the east. He had slept late. To eat his meager breakfast, water and saddle his horse, fill his canteen, were but the work of a few moments, and then he was on his way again, alert, cautious, not to be misled by his ardor.

  Tom traveled ten miles farther east before his ears again throbbed to the boom of the big buffalo guns. Scattered herds grazed out on the prairie, but appeared unmolested by hunters. The shooting came from across the river. Five miles farther on, however, Tom reached the zone of camps on that side, and heard the boom of guns.

  Between that point and the river bluffs, which he recognized as landmarks near Hudnall's present location, he found and rode through seven camps of buffalo-hunters. Wagons, tents, reloading kits, mess boxes, bales of hides, squares and squares of hides pegged out--these were in no wise different from the particulars of the camps opposite.

  But Tom did not find what he sought. He crossed the river and rode towards Hudnall's with a heavy heart.

  The afternoon was far spent, still it was too early for Tom not to be surprised to see his comrades in camp. There appeared to be other hunters--a group, talking earnestly.

  Tom urged his tired horse to a trot, then a lope. Something was wrong at Hudnall's. He felt it. There came a cold tightening round his heart. Reaching camp, Tom flung himself out of the saddle.

  Ory Tacks, the nearest to Tom, as he advanced toward the men, was crying. Dunn sat near him, apparently dazed. Burn Hudnall's head was buried in his arms. Stronghurl and Pilchuck were in conversation with a group of seven or eight men, among whom Tom recognized hunters from adjoining camps. It was significant to behold these men all carrying their rifles. More significant was Pilchuck's face, hard, cold, forbidding, with his thin lips set in tight line and his eyes almost narrowed shut.

  "What's--happened?" burst out Tom, breathlessly.

  Burn Hudnall raised a face Tom could never forget.

  "Father was murdered by Indians."

  "Oh, my God--no!" cried Tom, in distress.

  "Yes. . . . I saw him killed--an' I just got away--by the skin of my teeth," replied Burn, in a dreadful voice.

  "How? When? Where?" panted Tom, shocked to his depths.

  "It was father's carelessness. Oh, if he had only listened to Pilchuck. . . . Mebbe two hours ago. I was west of here four or five miles when I saw a band of Indians. They were ridin' towards us. I was skinnin' a bull an' was concealed behind the carcass.

  Father was off a quarter of a mile, ridin' round a small bunch of buffalo, shootin' fast, an' blind to anythin' else but buffalo. I yelled my lungs out. No use! He couldn't hear. I got to my horse an' was thinkin' of runnin' over to save father, when I saw I was too late. . . . The Indians rode like the wind. They ran down on father. I saw puffs of smoke an' heard shots. Father fell off his horse. Then the Indians circled round him, shootin', yellin', ridin' like naked painted devils. . . . Presently they quit racin', an' rode into a bunch, round where he lay. Some of them dismounted. Others rode toward the wagon an' team. These Indians saw me an' started for me. I tell you I had to ride, an' they chased me almost into camp. . . . Tom, I know what it is to hear the whistle of bullets!"

  "He's out there--on the prairie--dead?" gasped Tom.

  "Certain as death," replied Burn, solemnly. "Who's to tell mother an' Sally?"

  "But--but we must go out there--to see--to find out--."

  "Pilchuck's taken charge, Tom," replied the other. "He says the Indians were Comanches an' in pretty strong force. We're to wait till morning, get a bunch of men together, an' then go out to bury father."

  Tom was stunned. The catastrophe as persistently portended by Pilchuck and corroborated by Sprague had at last fallen. Splendid, fine, kindly Hudnall was dead at the hands of revengeful savages.

  It was terrible. To be warned of such a thing was nothing, but the fact itself stood out in appalling vividness.

  "Let's rustle supper while it's daylight," said Pilchuck, coming over. "We don't want a camp fire to-night. Reckon there's hardly any danger of attack, but we want to stand guard an' not take any chances."

  Camp tasks had to go on just the same, and Tom helped Dunn and Ory Tacks. The other hunters turned to leave with an understanding that they were to stand guard at their camps, and return in the morning.

  "Starwell, we'll plan to-morrow after we bury Hudnall," said the scout.

  "One only plan," replied the other, a lean, dark, forceful looking Westerner whom Tom felt he would not care to cross. "We buff- hunters must band together an' trail them Comanches."

  "Reckon you're right, Star," returned Pilchuck, grimly. "But there's no rush. Them redskins have done more'n kill Hudnall, I'll bet you. They've been raidin'. An' they'll strike for the Staked Plain. That means we've got to organize. If there's a hell of a place in the world it's shore the Staked Plain."

  Supper without the cheerful presence of Hudnall would have been a loss, but the fact that he lay dead, murdered, surely mutilated, out there on the prairie, was monstrous to Tom. He could not eat.

  He wandered about camp, slowly r
ealizing something beyond the horror of the calamity, a gradual growth from shock to stern purpose. No need to ask Pilchuck what was in his mind! The plainsman loomed now in Tom's sight big and strong, implacable and infallible.

  Tom stood guard with Stronghurl during the earlier watches of the night; and the long-drawn mournful howl of the prairie wolf had in it a new significance. This wild West was beginning to show its teeth.

  Chapter XI

  Morning came, and Pilchuck had the men stirring early. When Tom walked out to the camp fire dawn was brightening, and there was a low roll of thunder from the eastward.

  "We're in for a thunderstorm," he said to the scout, who was cooking breakfast.

  "Storm, mebbe, but not thunder-an'-lightnin' storm," replied Pilchuck. "That sound you hear is new to you. It's a stampede of buffalo."

  "Is that so? . . . Say, how like thunder!"

  "Yep, we plainsmen call it the thunderin' herd. But this isn't the main herd on the rampage. Somethin', most likely Indians, has scared the buffalo across the river. They've been runnin' south for an hour. More buffalo over there than I had an idee of."

  "Yes, I saw miles of scattered herds as I rode up the river," said Tom.

  "I smell smoke, too, an' fact is, Doan, I don't like things a damn bit. If the main herd stampedes--holy Moses! I want to be on top of the Staked Plain. Reckon, though, that's just where we'll be."

  "You're going after the Comanches?" inquired Tom, seriously.

  "Wal, I reckon. It's got to be done if we're to hunt buffalo in peace."

  Burn Hudnall presented himself at the camp fire, his face haggard with grief; but he was now composed. He sat at breakfast as usual, and later did his share of the tasks. Not long afterward Starwell and his men rode into camp, heavily armed and formidable in appearance.

  "Jude, what you make of that stampede across the river?" he asked, after greetings were exchanged.

  "Wal, I ain't makin' much, but I don't like it."

  "We heerd shootin' yesterday at daylight down along the river from our camp," returned Starwell. "Small-bore guns, an' I don't calkilate hunters was shootin' rabbits for breakfast."